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The Skull of ‘Scattered Man' Washed Up on a Beach 30 Years Ago. Students Just ID'd the Remains.
Here's what you'll learn when you read this story:
A skull washed on up on the shore of a New Jersey beach back in 1995, with further bone fragments appearing in 1999 and 2013. As a result, the set of remains earned the nickname 'Scattered Man John Doe.'
Stumped for nearly three decades, local law enforcement recently turned to students at Ramapo College to employ genetic analysis and historical research to try and identify whose bones had washed ashore.
The students were able to determine that the remains belonged to Henry Goodsell, the 29-year-old captain of the merchant ship Oriental, who died during a storm alongside his crew in 1844
This story is a collaboration with
Imagine it's 1995. You've just had a good time seeing Batman Forever at the movies. You're cracking open an OK soda, strolling along the beach in Longport, New Jersey, rocking out to Shaggy's 'Boombastic,' when all of a sudden you stumble across a shocking sight: a skull has washed up on the shore.
Did somebody drown at the beach? Did you stumble across the remnants of a mob hit? Whose skull is this, and how did it get here? You contact the proper authorities and feel certain they'll find the answer soon enough.
Now imagine it's 1999. You've just had an O.K. time seeing Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, and have likely forgotten all about that skull on the beach four years ago when, suddenly, news breaks: fragments of bone from the same corpse as the Longport skull have now been found less than two miles away in the nearby town of Margate.
Authorities are no closer to identifying the dead man.
Now, it's 2013. You just saw Frozen, and as you check your phone on the way out of the theater, you see the news alert: new skeletal remains, likely connected with that 1995 skull, have washed up in Ocean City.
Still, law enforcement remains no closer to identifying a body whose skull was first discovered 18 years prior, and they've taken to calling the skeletal remnants 'Scattered Man John Doe.'
Well, after 12 more years—a total of 30 since that skull was first discovered Longport, New Jersey—the Scattered Man has finally been identified.
Through a combination of genetic analysis and good-old-fashioned historical research—in a collaboration between state law enforcement and the Ramapo College of New Jersey's Investigative Genetic Genealogy Center—the remains have been found to belong to Henry Goodsell, the captain of a merchant ship who died during a storm alongside his crew.
Goodsell was only 29 years old when he died, meaning that he spent more years as 'the skull that washed up on the beach' than he ever did as a living, breathing man. But all the more remarkable is how long Goodsell's body had been lost, awaiting discovery: the storm that claimed Goodsell's life occurred in the winter of 1844.
Ramapo's search for answers began in the fall of 2023, when they sent a DNA sample from the remains to Intermountain Forensics 'who uploaded the sample to GEDmatch and FamilyTreeDNA in February of 2024,' per a Ramapo College press release. This allowed the Ramapo undergraduates to trace the genealogy of the deceased. The students found evidence of ancestry 'dating back to the 1600s, with genetic relatives hailing from Litchfield and Fairfield counties in Connecticut.'
For a full year, students at Ramapo hit the books, volunteering their time to try and triangulate deceased or missing figures with ties to Connecticut who may have been involved in shipwrecks off of the coast of New Jersey. That's when they discovered two news articles from December of 1844, which spoke of the sad fate of the vessel Oriental:
'The students learned that five crew members were aboard the Oriental, which departed from Connecticut en route to Philadelphia, PA, to deliver 60 tons of marble for use by Girard College, a college preparatory boarding school that opened in 1848. The ship was wrecked off the coast of Brigantine Shoal in 1844. It was reported the ship likely sprung a leak and went down less than one mile from the shoreline, and all crew members died. The captain of the ship was 29-year-old Henry Goodsell.'
From there, the students proposed Goodsell as a possible identification to New Jersey State Police, and they in turn (in March of 2025) collected a DNA sample from one of Goodsell's descendants. A match was confirmed by NJSP on April 8, 2025, finally resolving the mystery of the Scattered Man John Doe.
'Identifying human remains is one of the most solemn and challenging responsibilities law enforcement is charged with,' Chief of County Detectives Patrick Snyder at the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office stated in the press release. 'Law enforcement works hard knowing that behind every case is a promise: that no one will be forgotten, and that we will pursue the truth until families have the answers they deserve.'
The identification of Goodsell also demonstrates the potential of modern genetic analysis to solve cases that have gone even colder than we ever thought solvable. 'Using modern genealogy testing to identify bone fragments from the 19th century is a powerful reminder of our unwavering commitment to resolving cases no matter how old,' noted Colonel Patrick J. Callahan, NJSP superintendent. 'The ability to bring answers to families—even generations later—shows how far science and dedication can take us.'
So now, it's 2025. You just saw the new Mission: Impossible and can't believe it's been 29 years since that first one came out. And you finally have some closure on whose skull it was that washed ashore on the beach all the way back in 1995. Henry Goodsell, age 29, captain of the Oriental.
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